And Xanthus, in his ‘Account of Lydia,’ says that Cambles, who was the king of the Lydians, was a great eater and drinker, and also an exceeding epicure; and accordingly, that he one night cut up his own wife into joints and ate her; and then, in the morning, finding the hand of his wife still sticking in his mouth, he slew himself, as his act began to get notorious.  And we have already mentioned Thys, the king of the Paphlagonians, saying that he too was a man of vast appetite, quoting Theopompus, who speaks of him in the thirty-fifth book of his ‘History’; and Archilochus, in his ‘Tetrameters,’ has accused Charilas of the same fault, as the comic poets have attacked Cleonymus and Pisander.  And Phoenicides mentions Chaerippus in his ‘Phylarchus’ in the following terms:—­

     “And next to them I place Chaerippus third;
     He, as you know, will without ceasing eat
     As long as any one will give him food,
     Or till he bursts,—­such stowage vast has he,
     Like any house.”

And Nicolaus the Peripatetic, in the hundred and third book of his ‘History,’ says that Mithridates, the king of Pontus, once proposed a contest in great eating and great drinking (the prize was a talent of silver), and that he himself gained the victory in both; but he yielded the prize to the man who was judged to be second to him, namely, Calomodrys, the athlete of Cyzicus.  And Timocreon the Rhodian, a poet and an athlete who had gained the victory in the pentathlum, ate and drank a great deal, as the epigram on his tomb shows:—­

     “Much did I eat, much did I drink, and much
     Did I abuse all men; now here I lie:—­
     My name Timocreon, my country Rhodes.”

And Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, in one of his prefaces, says that Timocreon came to the great king of Persia, and being entertained by him, did eat an immense quantity of food; and when the king asked him, What he would do on the strength of it? he said that he would beat a great many Persians; and the next day having vanquished a great many, one after another, taking them one by one, after this he beat the air with his hands; and when they asked him what he wanted, he said that he had all those blows left in him if any one was inclined to come on.  And Clearchus, in the fifth book of his ‘Lives,’ says that Cantibaris the Persian, whenever his jaws were weary with eating, had his slaves to pour food into his mouth, which he kept open as if they were pouring it into an empty vessel.  But Hellanicus, in the first book of his Deucalionea, says that Erysichthon, the son of Myrmidon, being a man perfectly insatiable in respect of food, was called AEthon.  Also Polemo, in the first book of his ‘Treatise addressed to Timaeus,’ says that among the Sicilians there was a temple consecrated to gluttony, and an image of Demeter Sito; near which also there was a statue of Himalis, as there is at Delphi one of Hermuchus, and as at Scolum in Boeotia there are statues of Megalartus and Megalomazus.